This book explains how advanced democracies and welfare states can
achieve welfare-enhancing, liberal institutional reform. It develops a
general theory based on an extended comparative case study of Sweden
and Australia over the last 25 years, and offers an in-depth
contribution to the field of institutional change, explaining how to
govern a country well and how to overcome different barriers to
reform, such as special interests, negativity biases and media logic.
It develops the concepts of the ‘reform cycle’, ‘reform
strategies’ and ‘polycentric experiential’ learning in order to
explain successful reforms, and the key role of policy entrepreneurs,
who introduce and develop new ideas. The book further examines why
these reforms came to an end. Karlson also applies the ideas of
Popperian, Kuhnian and Machiavellian reform strategies, and explains
why they are needed for reform to come about. The theory of modern
statecraft presented here involves a combination of knowing what and
knowing how. It has the potential to be generally applicable in any
advanced democracy with the ambition to improve its economy and
society. This book is of interest for anyone who is concerned about
budget deficits, slow growth, over regulation, lack of structural
reforms and the rise of populism. It will appeal to scholars of
political science, public policy and political economy.
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9783319642338
Publisert
2019
Utgiver
Vendor
Palgrave Macmillan
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter